


And what I'd rather do Is just stay right here with you

by Macaron



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: Daniel has just a fever so not a big hurt, Divorced Daniel, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27544870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macaron/pseuds/Macaron
Summary: "Are you dying?" Johnny asks him.LaRusso seems perplexed, perhaps he has had a stroke and cannot understand what Johnny is saying."What?""Are you dying?""What? Now?"Johnny nods."No no. I'm not dying - I don't think, it' just-.""Okay. Bye" and he walks away.(In which Daniel has a fever and Johnny has to take care of him. More or less.)
Relationships: Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 23
Kudos: 145





	And what I'd rather do Is just stay right here with you

As a child, Sam had suffered from tonsillitis for a year before they decided to have her tonsils removed. She was a quiet child, she didn't throw tantrums to take pills and she wasn't afraid of doctors (Daniel had been terrified of hospitals for years after his father's death, Mr. Miyagi and his mother practically had to drag him into one of them after the tournament) but when she had a high fever she couldn't sleep. Amanda had Anthony to take care of, as well as work and a sick child, and she was completely exhausted in the evening so Daniel was the one who spent many nights awake with his daughter. They watched television together on the couch, Sam loved documentaries about oceans and dolphins and octopus for some reason, or read her stories until her eyes closed. In those moments with a half asleep child in his arms, Daniel felt he was on the right path, that he had managed to find a balance within himself.

Amanda usually woke him up in the morning with coffee and a painkiller for his neck.

"You are good at this." she told him. "You are terrible as a patient, but you are good at taking care of people." And it was true.

If he knows the address of the new Miyagi-do dojo is only because Johnny is an excellent businessman and must be informed about all the Reseda karate schools, about his competitors. If he knows that the address of the new Miyagi-do is also the address of the apartment where LaRusso has lived since his divorce from his wife, is only because Miguel let him slip away at one time or another and Johnny has a excellent memory. There is nothing wrong about that. And if he's going to the LaRusso dojo on a Thursday evening after class, it's only because they have unreasonably raised the tournament fee and LaRusso is one of the sponsors. Only for that reason. It has nothing to do with the fact that Johnny hasn't seen him around for a few days.Because after all it's not that since the divorce of LaRusso the two of them have met for a beer at least once a week by choice, it happened because Johnny likes beer and LaRusso is always around. At home he has coors waiting for him and no reason to want to see LaRusso except business.

Not that he expected a party or a marching band at his entrance at Miyagi do but LaRusso seems not himself. Johnny will never admit it but one of the things he always liked about LaRusso is his energy, even when they were at school, he was always on the go, always hopping like some energetic bunny from the battery ad (even the size issimilar) but tonight he seems dull, tired.

Johnny talks, he makes a couple of allusions to the fact that the Cobra Kai should be entitled to not pay anything since it's his the dojo the one who won last year but LaRusso doesn't seem to take the provocation. Something that never happens.

"Hey man, are you listening to me?"

Daniel looks up from the floor and just shakes himself as if trying to wake up. "Yes, yes." he sighs. "Yes Johnny, I'm listening."

And he passes out.

LaRusso is not dead. That is a good thing because Johnny isn't good with dead people, he thinks. They are a big commitment, paperwork and stuff, and a bad company (not that LaRusso is normally a good company, Johnny would never say that).

When he recovers he looks pale but definitely alive. Johnny realizes that he should have brought him a glass of water or something like that but then he would have to go into LaRusso's kitchen or maybe go to his room and that would have been intimate, not something that mortal enemies would do.

He waits for LaRusso to get to his feet with difficulty, even reaches out a hand to help him, because he is that kind of adult now, and to tell him what is happening. But it doesn't happen. LaRusso stands up and remains silent, one hand on his temple and the other leaning against a piece of furniture, as if he were trying to put the pieces back together.

"Are you dying?" Johnny asks him.

LaRusso seems perplexed, perhaps he has had a stroke and cannot understand what he is saying.

"What?"

"Are you dying?"

"What? Now?"

Johnny nods.

"No no. I'm not dying - I don't think, it' just-."

"Okay. Bye" and he walks away.

When he comes back ten minutes later LaRusso is still in the living room, sitting on the floor but with a glass of water in his hand this time.

He looks at Johnny visibly annoyed.

"It's just fever." he says and when Johnny looks puzzled he adds articulating the words slowly " It's just a bad fever, that is what I was saying when you ran away. "

"I didn't run" Johnny starts to reply and then he shuts up because he, in fact, ran away. Like he does. Sometimes.

"Why did you come back, anyway?" and in his voice there is suspicion but softness too.

"My car didn't start."

"This is the worst lie I've ever heard. I've seen you turn the corner."

"My car turned off right after." Johnny grumbles.

"Johnny, I saw you drive back to my apartment parking lot with your car, unless you found an identical one around the corner."

Johnny smiles. He likes that. The banter. Annoy LaRusso, LaRusso being annoying.

"Whatever. I realized that I couldn't go home, I lent Miguel the keys to go there with a girl." and when he says that he immediately realizes that he has talked too much. Fuck.

"Which girl?" LaRusso asks.

"I don't know... just one. They are all the same with hair and smartphone."

"Johnny, you know Miguel is dating my daughter again, right?"

"Of course I know!" He hesitates. "I didn't know if you knew and I didn't want to blow up their cover."

Daniel sighs.

"You can relax, you know?"

"She's sixteen and she's my daughter, if I could relax I wouldn't be doing my job well."

Johnny thinks of Robby, thinking of all the times he's been relaxed instead of worrying about his son. And then he thinks of all the times he fell asleep drunk on the couch to shut up that part of him that wondered where his son was, how he was at that moment. Johnny thinks of Miguel, how every time he slows down during class for some reason or has to catch a breath, Johnny's heart loses a beat and starts imagining terrible scenarios.

"Okay, but in this case you can really relax about Miguel, he's one of the good ones."

"How can you tell?"

"Because he's nothing like me."

LaRusso stares at him with his big brown eyes that look even bigger and darker with fever and Johnny feels like when he wants to run away.

Things Johnny Lawrence is good at dealing with: a fight, figuring out exactly how many beers he can drink before he needs a headache painkiller, a friendly banter.

Things Johnny isn't good at dealing with: LaRusso looking at him with her giant Bambi eyes and saying

"You're one of the good ones too, Johnny Lawrence."

The thing is that Johnny doesn't really know what to do with him. When he took the decision to turn off the car and come back to LaRusso's apartment he had thought only of that. Get out of the car, enter the house because LaRusso is sick and cannot be left alone. What he hadn't thought about was what to do with him once he was home. What do you do with a person who has a fever? Johnny has no idea how to take care of someone who is sick, he wasn't there when Robby was little, he doesn't even know where to start.

He starts by asking questions.

"How are you?"

LaRusso just raises an eyebrow like it's the dumbest question of a lot, it probably is, and lets out a sigh.

"My head is throbbing so much it feels like I have a jackhammer in it and as soon as I try to move it gets worse. Also, I get chills."

"Not so good, right?"

Daniel looks up at him, eyes narrow as if the light bothers him (probably bothers him, Johnny mentally notes). And then he smiles.

"No, Johnny not so good."

"Do you want something to eat?" He asks again. People need to eat, they get better with something in their stomach.

"Do you know how to cook?" Daniel looks almost amazed.

"Well no, of course." He thinks about it " I know how to put a frozen pizza in the oven."

"So you're asking me if I want to eat something but then should I cook for both of us?"

Of course not. Maybe. "Maybe cooking relaxes you, it seems like one of those things you super modern business people like to do on weekends to get in tune with yourself or shit like that."

"Fuck you."

"I can try, you know?" Johnny adds. "To cook something I mean, if you are hungry. It's not rocket science."

"I don't want anything to eat. I'm sick." LaRusso says pouting.

Johnny thinks that part of him really wants to be in the car right now (another part, the one he doesn't talk to very often is happy to be in this exact place).

"Okay no food then." He gets an idea. "Do you want me to give your plants water?"

"My plants?"

"Your trees?"

"My trees?"

Johnny is gonna kill him.

"Ah you mean my bonsai." LaRusso stands up and his gaze wanders in search of something until it stops on a chair. Johnny hands him a robe that he is not sure he wants to see on him (Obviously LaRusso is the robe guy, the initials are probably engraved on it as well. Johnny doesn't even have pajamas in his house while he will sleep - don't think about how LaRusso sleeps don't think about how LaRusso sleeps).

"No they are okay. But thanks."

"I'm not gonna kill them."

"I didn't say anything." But even if he's trying to hide it Johnny knows he's laughing.

"I'm not!" He is scandalized.

"I don't doubt it, it's just that my bonsai are tricky, I don't let anyone touch them."

"Ah, okay." He thinks about it for a second and then realizes "Robby can prune your bonsai and I can't even water them?"

"Why are you screaming?" LaRusso sighs in exasperation.

"He's sixteen, until a couple of years ago he was trying to shave with a bread knife and you trust him more than me!"

"Johnny, Robby was a student of mine, I know how he behaves, I saw him being very gentle with bonsai, but you ..."

"Break a boy's leg once and suddenly you are not worthy to touch his precious bonsai!"

"You didn't even know they were called bonsai five minutes ago."

"That's not the point!" Johnny raises his voice again and LaRusso squints.

"Because there is no point, Johnny!"

And it is true. There is no point, no end, there never will be. There are just endless arguments about nothing which is how they talk, how they communicate, how they go on staying the same and every day they build something that on the outside might look like a rivalry but they both know it's the closest thing to a relationship they have ever had.

Johnny starts laughing, because they are two idiots who are fighting over some bonsai that don't even need water, and LaRusso can't help but follow him until his head is throbbing so much that he needs to lean on him.

"I feel bad." He says. And "Can you help me go to bed? Then you can go home and prevent my daughter from making me a grandfather prematurely."

But they both know that no one will be coming home in the next few hours.

Daniel tells him at least five times that he doesn't need help to go to the kitchen for a painkiller pill before Johnny decides to go and wait for him in his bedroom, maybe pulling out his pajamas or some shit like that to make himself useful. Except that what should be a bedroom lacks one fundamental detail: the bed.

"LaRusso!" Johnny shouts "Have you been robbed? Your bed is missing!"

LaRusso comes dangling into the room, a bottle of water still in his hand. "In the closet."

"Do you sleep in the closet? What are you, a vampire?"

"I'm not sure vampires sleep in closets, actually." LaRusso smiles "No my futon is in the closet."

"What the fuck is a futon?"

LaRusso starts sliding the closet door, then nods to Johnny "Do you want to help me?" and points to a thing, a gigantic rolled-up pillow "That's my futon, unroll it on the tatami. Where by the way you shouldn't have walked with your shoes on."

Johnny sighs as the futon opens to the floor without the slightest resemblance to a bed.

"What the fuck is this stuff?"

"My bed."

It doesn't look like a bed, he has seen some better looking camping mats and he was fifteen at the time. Then he realizes and the guilt overwhelms him.

"Is it for your leg? You can't lift it so you can't sleep in a real bed?"

"Oh, for the God's sake I can very well raise my leg. I teach karate."

Johnny doesn't seem convinced.

"I only kicked you a month ago!"

Always not convinced.

"I could beat you at any time."

Johnny raises an eyebrow "Really, Danielle?"

"Okay not right now. But anytime but now."

"If you need to tell yourself this at night to sleep peacefully ..." Then he reaches out his hand and helps Daniel lie down. That thing doesn't seem comfortable but LaRusso seems happy.

"You know you can go at any time, right? I just have a fever, I won't die."

Johnny shrugs. "I saw your TV in the living room and your mobile bar, I can stay a few more hours. You rest, ok, Danielle?"

"You know, Continuing to call me Danielle sooner or later you'll be wrong and say my name for real. And you'll be fucked."

Maybe he already is.

"Goodnight Daniel."

At some point during the night, because no one really believed Johnny was going home, Daniel has a nightmare. He wakes up drenched in sweat and shivering.

Johnny is there next to him. "Are you okay, man?" Instinctively he passes a hand over his forehead to feel the temperature and Daniel, half asleep, realizes that the last person to have done so was Mr. Miyagi. "You're burning, are you sure I can't do something?"

Daniel shakes his head. "It's just a fever, I'm not worried."

"I am." Johnny hands him a glass of water ("Easy, LaRusso"), lies down and Daniel makes room for him in the futon. They have never been this close without conflict and now it seems the most natural thing in the world.

"You are good at this." Daniel tells him.

"At what?"

"To take care of people. Not that it's new, it already shows in the way you look after your kids at Cobra Kai. It comes naturally to you, you don't have to think about things a thousand times."

Johnny remains silent, unable to see himself in those words.

"I was good at that too, with Mr. Miyagi, with Sam. Now, I don't know anymore."

Nobody talks for a few minutes and Johnny wonders if the other man has fallen asleep. "I don't know what I can be if I'm not able to take care of people." A pause. "I got lost somewhere in all of this. I'm so sorry about that."

"You are not lost. You are right here." Johnny tries to play down.

And Daniel looks at him with his big Bambi eyes that make Johnny feel like he's still sixteen. And smiles. "You are here too." he says.

"Don't stress too much about it, LaRusso." And he is talking about Daniel's worries. Not about them in the same bed. Of course not. "It's just the fever talking."

"Or it's having you in my bed." Daniel reply lightly.

Johnny hopes the dim room light can hide his blush, otherwise will be embarrassing. "Ok, this is definitely the fever talking."

Daniel comes closer to him. "Maybe I should let the fever talk more often then." And then he kisses him. Johnny would never confess it, even under torture, but when he imagined their first kiss he imagined something different. At sixteen in his room he had imagined a fight rather than a kiss. At fifty he had imagined teeth and passion and skin and thirty something years of masturbatory fantasies wrapped up in a moment. What he has is intimacy. Safeness.

Daniel smiles on his lips.

"You are giving me a heart attack!" Johnny snorts. "Five minutes ago you were having a mental breakdown and now you are kissing me and-"

LaRusso starts to laugh.

"I can't stand you. You are such an ass."

"And here you are anyway."

When he wake up in the morning, still close to each other, with their legs touching even though he obviously didn't pay attention to that, LaRusso still looks like shit. So of course Johnny says it.

"You still look like shit."

Daniel opens his eyes and sighs. "You are a master at the art of pillow talk, Johnny Lawrence!"

"I'm fucking good at pillow talk, no one has ever complained!"

"Maybe because no-one ever stayed."

Ouch.

"Maybe because I never asked! And before you start I'm really good with what comes before the pillow talk too."

"The snoring? Yes you are."

Johnny is gonna kill him.

"This is not a pillow talk!" He reply, almost scandalized. "And this..." he vaguely gestures at the futon "isn't even a fucking bed."

Daniel gets serious for a few seconds.

"I bought it thinking of Mr. Miyagi, thinking it would be nice to start my new life with something that made me feel closer to him"

And now Johnny is an asshole.

"I'm sure he would have liked the gesture." He says, because that's the right thing to say.

Daniel shrugs and lets out a sigh. "He would have hated it. Hated it. He would have told me" and imitates Mr. Miyagi's voice "Daniel-san you have to find your bed, and with your bed you have to find your way. No Miyagi, Daniel-san way."

"You are terrible at making voices."

"Johnny?" As he says his name he comes closer again and Johnny wonders if they are about to kiss again. He hopes so.

"Mh?" Daniel snuggles against him. And it seems almost more intimate than the kiss.

"I hate this futon."

"I know, I know. We'll go and choose another bed."

**Author's Note:**

> @Newts-geiszler on tumblr wanted to read a story where Johnny or Daniel took care of each other for a cold, or a fever and this thing happened. I hope you'll like it as I liked the prompt and writing it.
> 
> As always english isn't my first language and I write it as bad ad Kreese teaches karate.
> 
> The title is from a song by Train, Futon. I just googled "futon lyrics" because I suck at finding titles.
> 
> I love these idiots so much.


End file.
